Zebra LC opens hub office in south Manchester

Holland: The new office hub will encapsulate the same vibrant energy that is within our operational development and our growing team

From 1 October, Zebra LC has created a lively hub office in south Manchester.

A place where Zebra’s specialist network will work, connect and collaborate. During 2014, the specialist multi-legal discipline due diligence business has grown to a national team of 45 leading experts. Its core team will be based in the new south Manchester hub, allowing the growing projects team and legal technical auditors to collaborate on a project- by-project basis. Zebra LC will also continue to keep its Manchester city-centre meeting facility at Chancery Place.

The move is part of Zebra’s on-going commitment to innovation in how they are structured, as well as how they deliver client projects. With recent projects including advising the investment Board of private equity firm North Edge Capital in the £15million investment in law firm Roberts Jackson.

Zebra launched its online auditing process in August this year. This has created a paperless audit process, and means that real-time reports can be assessed during the audit day – allowing the due diligence focus to change through the project if needed. The Zebra team now comes armed with bespoke audit software, encrypted iPads, and their leading legal brains! “It is essential that as leading law firms move to a paperless system, and embrace new technologies, that we do the same’” says Zoe Holland.

Further, Zebra has developed a web based business collaboration tool to provide a valuable knowledge based sharing platform between its national network of technical experts. Zebra’s MD, Zoe Holland, looked to other entrepreneurial businesses who were developing social networks to co-create new services with their clients, speeding up knowledge access and implementation.

“It has been critical for the business to reinvest in technology this year. Zebra delivers a distinct and market leading service and this requires an agile operational platform. We assessed research from McKinsey Global Institute on how to facilitate collaboration and project management.

“With projects growing in pace and size in our second year, our focus has been on growing the business through technology and we have looked at solutions that straddle two lines – online project management and business social network. Our commitment to leading edge web based software has achieved this with alacrity,” says Zoe Holland, managing director, Zebra LC.

“The new office hub will encapsulate the same vibrant energy that is within our operational development and our growing team. It’s not quite a ‘Google office’ but as one of our projects team pointed out, it’s more of a Zebra savannah.”

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Written in honour of Malcolm Young, recently deceased founding member of AC/DC, there are nine references to AC/DC songs throughout this article. We will send a £20 iTunes voucher to the first person who gets in touch to tell us what they are. The forces that are driving change in the legal profession are wide and varied. The ability of law firms and individual solicitors to respond positively and innovatively to these challenges will determine who survives and prospers. Competition for new business is fierce, a dog eat dog world, one might say. Which brings us to AC/CD. Not my favourite rock band, but an acronym for Attract, Convert, Close and Delight – the four pillars of inbound marketing.